SEPTEMBER HERMIT SAL and some gardening!

Hi everyone!
I haven't had time to stitch the last two weeks. Have missed a few SAL's. But, I did get time to participate in the Hermiter's SAL this weekend. Grab the Hermit button next to this post and join in!
The cat and I pretty much had the house to our selves this past weekend. Only two road repair calls. One each on saturday and sunday. Simple and didn't cut into my weekend too  much.
Here is my progress on my HAED Mystery piece
Before. a lot of confetti.

 After. Confetti finished and 3 bottom pages done. They are 1/2 pages. So the bulk of the design is yet to be stitched. I will not pick this one up until next year. As much holiday stitching and more page goals to accomplish.

 QS Chocolate, before

 QS Chocolate, after. Got the confetti stitching done on the middle cookie. Switched to less confetti stitching for a break. Will continue to work on this one until the last bottom page is completed.

 Brooke's Books Santa from the 2013 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Magazine issue. 14 count antique brown perforated plastic canvas.

 I finished beading a Mill Hill Halloween Heart ornament on black 14 count perforated plastic canvas. I found a pretty Halloween feather tree at Hobby Lobby. LOVE their 40% off coupons! Decided to add Belinda The Bat Witch for a tree topper.

 Because the tree is a cardboard shaped cone I used a decorative straight pin to attach the ornament. Have one more heart to finish beading.

 On the garden front, we received a shipment of Shriners iris roots out of Brooke's, Oregon. These are packed in organic shredded materials, for shipping, so no molding.  2 year old roots. Very large and already getting new growth. I like that they have plastic tags to identify plants. Turn them over to keep the sun from bleaching out colors.

 Some tags are a little wonky as I didn't want to disturb the plant for a good tag picture.

 Remember Mr Pineapple? Well, we had a minor set back... After a month I figured we were safe from anything digging up the plant. All the original fruit materials from mother pineapple was gone and roots had formed. We were wrong... The raccoons decided to dig through the barrel and laid Mr Pineapple over. Not once, but four times in consecutive nights. We don't know if the plant will have any fruit(maybe that should be Mrs Pineapple) due to being dug out, but it is a pretty plant and the spikes are nearly the expanse of the barrel.

That's our progress so far. I haven't done much blog reading the last few weeks. I promise I will get to reading your blogs and all the wonderful projects everyone is stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Deb

YOTA UFO update!

It's that time again! The first saturday of the month and time for a YOTA UFO (Un Finished Object) update. The weather is hot as ever, Even more so than in august. But, we have had a bit of rain which is keeping the garden alive and helping it through the heat. We have some new iris plants in fresh from Shriner's iris farms out of Brooks Oregon. They have the best iris roots. Very large and shipped in a wood shreds organic packing material that keeps them from becoming moldy or soft. We had the pleasure of visiting their vast gardens one spring. Truely magnificent with flowers of all kind, benches to sit and admire the blooms and mail box stations along the way to pick through brochures stating colors and breeds of flowers.
I tried to take pictures of the plastic tags attached to the roots. There is so much humidity in the air that my camera lense fogged up. Thought I was going blind until I looked at the lense! Maybe in a few weeks the humidity will cooperate.
On to the stitching!
This Joan Elliott Wizzard has been my focus piece all through this years YOTA SAL. The link, if you wish to join the sal, with any ole' work that has been sitting for awhile, is on my side bar with a few other SAL's.
The cross stitch was done last month and back stitching had been started. I really was not going to back stitch this whole piece. I have used 1/4 stitches to chisel the edges so they were not so "stair step" looking and would take the place of the back stitching outlines. THEN I started working with the Krienik #4 braided metallic's required for the castle and some of the gown. I was hooked. Started using the Kreinik for everything but the face. DMC #3799, which is almost a black, was required for much of the gown and it was just too dark. This is what put me off the back stitching to begin with.
Before

 After, with more Kreinik Metallic's back stitching.

 Made a nice and sparkly upgrade!

I still have quite a bit of detail back back stitching on the gown and cloak. Once that is done, there is a ton of beads. But, I am in the home stretch with this one and look forward to getting this finished by the end of the year. Have a frame ready to go!
Have finally finished my yearly page goals, and then some, on Mini Autumn Cat Magic. Think this one will be put away until I can get my other page goals finished. Still have the birth sampler and holiday gifts to finish. Having a difficult time with the holiday stitching. Every time I choose something to stitch for some one, I change my mind.... Although, once the article is started that is final and will be the chosen gift. Oooh! Maybe that is what I should do! Start everything and then work from there! No more indecision.

I started another piece this past spring. This will be called a Mystery Sampler. And will be so named for a while! Working on the bottom three pages. They are each 1/2 of a page and hope to have them done this next week so I can go on to my last three HAED and their yearly page goals. Getting close to the end of the year(E GADDS!) I really cringed when a TV commercial( DH missed the mute on the remote...) started screaming that there are only 101 days until christmas. That was last week and I didn't need to be reminded of that!

Another UFO SAL that has been making a little progress is the Pepper's Pillow. I really shirked my duty on this one this past month. Only a few stitches. But, I really like the coral colors and how they have brightened up the piece even more.

No small piece's this time. All those HAED page goals are coming back to haunt me. Oh well, what the hey, it's coming up on halloween anyway.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Deb